Greetings to my friends from SQL Server and BI land. About 18 months ago I hung up my evangelist hat and moved into a program management role on the Customer Advisory Team focusing on Windows Azure. I was asked to help engineering connect with customers...

I just got notified that a refresh of the Trust Services Lab is due out on July 9th 2012. For those of you who don’t know what Trust Services is, it’s a .NET encryption framework for protecting sensitive data stored in Windows Azure Data Management...

On June 7, 2012 in San Francisco, Scott Guthrie encouraged the world to Meet the New Windows Azure . As part of this milestone, Scott announced the availability of several Windows Azure Preview Features including a new Virtual Machine capability. This...

That’s right, just in time for SQL Server 2012 launch madness, every single presentation and demo included in the SQL Server 2012 Early Adoption Cook Book now has a corresponding video on Channel 9! There are 50 videos covering every imaginable...

If you are on the “bleeding edge” of SQL Server 2012 early adoption, and you need content, samples or upgrade resources to move the ball forward, read on! Microsoft creates a lot of content designed to drive early adoption for new releases of SQL Server...

My colleague Greg Low asked me to join him for the latest episode of the SQL Down Under podcast to discuss what’s new and interesting about SQL Server 2012. Check it out! http://www.sqldownunder.com/SQLDownUnderWMAFeed.xml Or: http://www.sqldownunder...

We just shipped a whole bunch of new content for the SQL Server 2012 Developer Training Kit and you can get it right now via the Web Installer Preview :
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9785999
This update includes eleven new hands-on labs covering...

We just shipped a whole batch of new SQL Azure content in the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit – October Release and also in the SQL Server 2012 Developer Training Kit . Here’s a quick summary of what’s new from a SQL Azure Perspective. New Lab...

Tuesday 11/1/2011 is a big day for SQL Server 2012 . The SQL Server engineering team will be in the house at DevConnections in Las Vegas. This post is for people who are attending SQL Server Connections and others who want to learn about SQL...

Well look no further! I’m pleased to announce that the MySemanticSearch Sample is now available on CodePlex at: mysemanticsearch.codeplex.com MySemanticSearch allows a user to upload Word documents into a SQL Server 2012 table, then visualize the...

I’m pleased to announce that the following presentations have been added to the SQL Server 2012 Developer Training Kit and are available for download: Introduction To SQL Server 2012 This presentation provides an overview of the key improvements in SQL...

If you want to learn how to develop database and business intelligence solutions that fully exploit SQL Server 2012 improvements, this resource is for you! The SQL Server 2012 Developer Training Kit includes technical content like labs, demos and presentations...

One of my favorite new features of SQL Server Code Name “Denali” is known as Semantic Search which makes it possible to automatically build tag clouds over a set of content then do powerful searches, such as “find documents that are similar to this one...

That’s right, it’s hot off the presses! If you’ve been waiting to try out great improvements like our new development tools, Transact-SQL language enhancements, and rich support for content, wait no more! You can find everything you need to get...

The May 2011 Update release of the SQL Server 2008 R2 Update for Developers Training Kit is available for download at the following URL: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9710868 The May 2011 update is a maintenance release which provides support for Windows...

If you are a database or BI developer, I’d like to invite you to tune into a new show on Channel 9 called DataBound . In each episode, I’ll be interviewing developers with an insider’s perspective on cutting edge SQL Server topics. ...

What if you could get two days of high quality training from leading industry experts on SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence technologies that would help you with existing projects, and also get a full day preview of the upcoming release of SQL Server...

No matter how many high quality reports you develop, your users will always want more. They may want to change something on an existing report, do their own analysis on the same data, or create a brand new report altogether. You have two choices: either...

Developers are good at building database applications that collect a lot of data, but what are you doing with all of it? There’s patterns hidden in that data just waiting to be exploited! Did you know that SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services includes...

Dashboards are a fundamental component of any performance management solution, and SharePoint 2010 PerformancePoint Services provides a rich set of tools and services for building highly interactive dashboard experiences that can help organizations of...

The Data-tier Application Framework (DAC Fx) was introduced in SQL Server 2008 R2 as part of an improvement category known as “ Application and Multi-Server Management ” (AMM). It’s a completely new way to manage the handoff of database schemas...

Microsoft is busy preparing the next release of SQL Server Code Name “Denali”. This exciting new release will include improvements that are interesting to developers, DBA’s and business intelligence pros alike, including: Tons of new developer improvements...

Now that you understand how to design and query Analysis Services cubes, this eighth unit in the SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence Training Course (a.k.a. SQLInsights ) on MSDN describes how to access cube data from familiar tools like Reporting...